Surreptitious Opinionation

So, it’s a classic market strategy. Emphasize your sales force over your support force. Anyone foolish enough to buy your product is stuck with whatever support they can get.

Part of the reason I chose mac in the first place was that I wanted a computer where I wouldn’t have so many maintenance headaches. Well, let’s see, 4 trips in less than 2 years. This isn’t a whole lot better than the refurbished PC laptops I got. Well, I suppose it’s the customer service that really makes the difference. I can walk into any mac store and get my difficulties taken care of, right? Wrong!

2 hours before the store closes, I walk in, and they tell me sorry, they can’t see me before the store closes because they have too many other people they’re helping. Keep in mind, my problem is simple. My ac adapter is falling apart. The ‘fix’ will be to replace it. But, no, no, they can’t handle that at least not today. Despite the fact that I paid about $300 to have my warantee extended another couple years. You see, you also have to pay extra to get decent customer support from apple. Like the ability to make an appointment to get your ac adapter replaced? You need to purchase “ProCare” for that. I foolishly let my membership in ProCare slide. I can certainly replace it. It’ll cost me $100 (well, $99, but who’s quibbling?). Meanwhile, replacing the adapter, suggested to me when I called to check and see if they carried the premagnetic ac adapters, costs $80 (or $78 or whatever).

Meanwhile, they have 10 guys downstairs, strolling around, ready to sell you anything at a moment’s notice, but mostly just scratching their butts. The ‘genius bar’ upstairs is packed with customers, meanwhile, and the geniuses have not a moment’s rest. After getting a gfy from the assistance reservation system, I went downstairs and talked to one of the strollers. He called me ‘buddy’. I asked if there was any way I could get this replaced under my warranty. He brightened up and gave a big ol’ smile, and said “Well, you can buy one!”

Yeah, fuck you too.

Socially speaking, I’ve been a bit of a hermit lately. I’ve emerged from my room mostly only to go to work, gaming in the suburbs (once / week) and go to the gym (no more than twice per week). Well, that and go on one date. I haven’t been checking lj either this past week. I may be coming out the other side, and resuming more active levels of social activity, but we will see. =)

Woo. =)

So, I did a little math. If I stay with my agency for 21 years, contributing the IRS max to my 401k equivalency from the time matching starts (about a year from now) until the end of those 20 years, and if that account earns on average 10% interest for those 20 years, and inflation averages 3%, then by the end of it all, I will be getting the equivalent of a little under 70k in interest from my retirement fund, assuming that when I am withdrawing it’s getting 5% interest. If only 10 years, then 45k. Had I done something comparable with my cmu ira, or my motorola ira, well, I couldn’t have contributed as much, but I suspect I would have at least doubled it.

If any of you have have plans, use them. Regard maximizing your employer matching as the minimum. Stick around wherever it is until you vest. Especially if you are young. Do as I say, not as I do. *wag finger sternly*

Oh yeah, I’m also going to weight my TSP heavily toward the foreign index. Very heavily, like 1/3 in that alone, not counting the stuff from the composite account. You know, just in case, cast a wide net.

So, Tuesday evening, I did end up heading to the alternative transportation show with eco-social. The whole thing was a little, uh, fluffy? But I wrote a master’s thesis on this topic. It was comprehensive, and while there was selective information, sometimes to the point of deceptiveness (electric cars are zero emissions, nevermind where the electricity comes from, or, for that matter, what happens to the batteries when they’re no good anymore). Okay, okay, there was a brief comment to the effect of “well, okay, so the grid isn’t entirely co2 neutral, but it could be.” But that ignores the tradeoffs in expanding our generation capacity (do we want unreliable wind, polluting coal, expensive and [less] polluting diesel/natural gas, or radioactive nuclear?) It’s a complex issue, and they can’t put the whole thing on a single placard. And while they did have the electric cars, hybrids, electric scooters, electric trike with shell for two (the twike), they did not have any highly fuel efficient car, or any of the more readily accessible things that are out there today. (though I realize the CRX isn’t in production at present either)

At dinner there was a speaker panel of a bike coalition rep, a planning advocacy rep, and a transit agency rep. They were there to talk about planning for transit. And they did a bit. I wanted a more complete and coherent picture, but I already have one. The facilitator put in occasional humorous asides that were pretty off the wall, but then he’d also put in things that focused it back to the point. There were of course the audience questions from people with an axe to grind. Most prominently there was someone who wanted to know why one particular line hadn’t been extended out to what was, I suspect, her neighborhood, despite long range plans that have been around for decades. When the transit guy was talking about all the long range plans, she interrupted and said she was only interested in the one line. Ugh. Not that conferences are any better on that score, but still, ugh.

So, tomorrow evening is suburban gaming with et al, aka, an opportunity to 0wn in Caylus. It’s also the evening of this month’s green drinks (a chicago environmentalist social thing that I found out about this evening) and a class on deconstructon of buildings for material re use at green tech U. All, of course, mutually conflicting. The next thing on chicago’s eco calendar of any interest doesn’t happen until a week from friday, in the morning (attention: work conflict).

Couldn’t they spread their events out any better than that? Grrrr.

To flake or not to flake, that is the question…

Got at b3co.com!

Of course, it misses caltrain, metra, and the like. And it skips the twin cities entirely. But still, nifty toy.